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    Life-drawing : trauma and intimacy in the essay qua drawing : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Fine Arts, Massey University Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Amodeo, Gabrielle
    Developing from a foundation of practice that included expanded field of drawing explorations, installation, and texts presented with gallery-based exhibiting, this research asks how an expanded practice of life-drawing—in which the essay operates in the capacity of a drawing—is valuable as a mode of representing experiences of trauma and intimacy within a contemporary visual arts context. Through an engagement with autotheoretical practices, and through proposing the form of an expanded practice of life-drawing (as a parallel to life-writing), this research investigates the theorised experiences of trauma and intimacy, both separately and in tandem, as they relate to drawing and the essay. It particularly looks at the dissociation of trauma in comparison, and in relation to, accrued observation as a practice of intimacy. This research also explicates the similarities between the essay and drawing, similarities that pull them so close, the essay can be sited within an expanded definition of drawing. To argue this, it investigates the effect of conceptual art and related commentaries on loosening understandings of drawing particularly, and art disciplines generally, away from traditional material concerns, allowing space for the essay in the capacity of a drawing. It then proposes the essay qua drawing as valuable in embodying the relationship between dissociation and intimacy. The essay qua drawing addresses the way drawings and essays can inform, exacerbate, disrupt and enhance the experience of trauma and intimacy. Both drawing and the essay are almost definitionally involved with forms that relate to the experience of trauma (in particular, gap and fragment) and the experience of intimacy (as a practice of accrued observation). The outcome is a novella-length personal essay presented in a limited-edition book that, in style, sits between artist-book and commercially published book.
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    'Invincible summer' : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Creative Writing at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Cush-Hunter, Jeanita
    Why is silence considered to be golden? This Master of Creative writing thesis questions why so many women suffer in silence and dares to break that silence. The thesis examines the genre of the personal essay in a contemporary context and explores its relevance and utility for the expression of the stories of women’s suffering. The thesis consists of two sections, creative and critical, and has an eighty percent creative component and a twenty percent critical component. Invincible Summer is divided into two parts. The first part is titled ‘Concerto’ and consists of 8 personal essays. This section explores content and subject matter that is specifically about and, relevant to, my personal experiences with suffering as a woman including Anorexia nervosa, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Postpartum trauma and being the mother of a child with Autism. The second part is titled ‘Risoluto’ and it is structured around critical analysis of the communication of suffering experienced by other women writers including Ashleigh Young, Maggie O’Farrell, and Leslie Jamison. As a whole, but most directly in this essay, the thesis questions and investigates the criticisms leveled against the personal essay, particularly the accusations of solipsism, narrow scope, and sensationalism. The thesis employs a variety of approaches toward the personal essay in order to explore the diversity and flexibility of the genre as a form of autobiographical writing. These personal essays utilise different approaches to structure and are built around scenes from specific times in my life. The essays explore the use of patterns and connections through personal writing in a way that allows each essay to be effective as a stand-alone essay while also functioning as part of a whole through the interweaving of common themes and events. By taking this approach, I aimed to portray the essays as snapshots of unique moments in order to demonstrate how fragments of a life may be perceived as isolated incidents while still forming part of a whole cohesive picture. My purpose when creating this thesis was to demonstrate the versatility, power and accessibility of the personal essay for women who write about their suffering. In the creative component, I aimed to demonstrate the flexibility of the personal essay as a framework that is capable of supporting multiple stories from multiple stages in a writer’s life. In the critical component, I defend the personal essay’s place in a contemporary context and argue against specific criticisms in order to justify that self-disclosure is an acceptable and respectable form of communication.